


It Goes Without Saying

by Rulerofthefakeempire



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, He is beautiful and an IDIOT, Him and the Shimada bros have eleven total brain cells and Hanzo had ten of them, Jesse McCree is a Himbo and none of you can convince me otherwise, M/M, Sweet Jesse McCree, Team Ultimate Chaos, Werewolf Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofthefakeempire/pseuds/Rulerofthefakeempire
Summary: A wolf is found by two brothers in the dark.The brothers take the wolf home.And the wolf makes a home of them.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 9
Kudos: 125





	It Goes Without Saying

The rain was coming in sheets, hard down against the compound, lashing against the cinderblock walls, the barbed wire coils shivering on the tops of the perimeter fences, thunder bursting against the swollen sky, a bitter wind howling, seeming to cut straight through his armour. But he’d take what blessings came, knowing that it was easier to kill on a loud night, easier to kill when there was already disorientation in the air, the guards so used to the noise that they wouldn’t startle, would stay still and docile as comrades dropped just out of sight. 

He crept slowly, inching though the halls in the darkness, bow lowered, shoulders slack, a kind of boredom to the task. Not quite the itching boredom of inactivity, but the dull throb of consistency, an eternity of knowing that his next step might be his last, that any wrong move might get him killed, but the effect barely there anymore, a tolerance for risk built up in him, for potential disaster. He couldn’t even muster a flinch when Genji tapped into the com, slipping through the west wing where Hanzo had taken the east, planning to meet in the middle, the courtyard they’d seen from above. 

“Hey,” his voice was quiet, edged with something, something eager, eager like a spark running up a fuse, eager like the dart and scatter of lightening, buzzing with energy, with joy. Hanzo could barely smother the groan, eyes rolling up into his head. Working with his brother was a nightmare, working with his brother was a mistake, working with his brother was about as effective as keeping a toddler on a leash by giving them a power tool. 

He tapped into the com, hoping that his brother would feel his resentment through the line. 

“ _What._ ” 

“I found something neat,” Genji whispered back, something almost giddy in his voice, “meet me in the courtyard.” 

“Genji,” every syllable pained him, suddenly so homesick for a terrified subordinate, for the foot soldiers of his youth that would have died before they spoke to him voluntarily, “we must dispose of every guard, do not tell me you’ve skipped ahead.” His life was loathsome and he was coming to loath it. 

From down the line he heard a snicker. 

“Oh, you’re still going? I finished my end five minutes ago.” 

The desire to start ripping out his hair was so strong he could hardly manage to keep his knuckles from whitening, he could barely manage to keep hissing into the darkness like a kettle coming to a boil, bubbling with frustration. 

“Shut the fuck up, Genji,” he tapped out of the com. 

… 

The snap was good, quick, and the guard dropped with a solid thud, hitting the cold concrete with no life left in him, the last of them. The death was easy, simple, clean, but even the satisfaction of a job well done had faded with age, rang empty in his ears, a tally on the jail cell wall full of tallies, another coin in a jar long full, meaningless to him no matter how cruel he knew it was to think that. He didn’t even pause to take stock, just stepped over him and moved on, Genji pretending to be unheard above him, dancing over the rafters that way he liked to do, had liked to do even when they were children, up trees like a cat, grinning down at him from between the branches. 

He landed behind him near silently as he reached the eastern mouth of the courtyard, wet and dead and dark. 

“Took you long enough,” he said, teasing excitement in his tone as if he was expected Hanzo to gasp and grasp his chest with surprise. Instead he just turned to glare at him, Genji dressed as darkly as he was, sword strapped to his back, lights in his eyes, flashes of green hair poking out from under his balaclava, no joy out grown, the same kid he’d been since Hanzo had last been a kid beside him. 

“Fuck off, let's go.” 

The hissed came out of him like it always had and he turned back towards the darkness, the courtyard, the compound all but done away with, destined to stay quiet and empty of life until the next delivery of enforcements came, until the bodies were discovered, already half rotted by the water leaking through the roof. 

Genji tottered after him. 

“Don’t you want to see my neat thing?” His lilting voice followed him like an echo, louder now that they knew there was no one left to die, no one left to catch them. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” He had the voice of someone with hidden tricks, but this was the boy who had faked illness by licking his palms; Hanzo wasn’t convinced. “Aren’t you even curious about what they’re doing all the way out here? Here in the forest? So many men?” He bit and jibed, hissing happily as the words sunk in, “Seems a bit odd, no?” 

Hanzo felt his pace trail without his permission, knowing full well that he wasn’t curious, that he wasn’t a curious man, wasn’t interested in the job, why it had to get done, just that they’d get paid, that there was a hotel waiting for them somewhere and he was ready for it. And yet, he found himself stopping, nose raised like he was listening for the sound of his own interest, trying to catch and smother whatever elusive flicker had accidentally sparked, his brother behind him. Snickering. 

“There’s no need for us to know,” he muttered, muttering like the drunkard whispering about last toasts, a final dance before drinking twelve more and collapsing in a gutter. 

“There’s no need for us not for us to know,” Genji whispered back, spinning around him, dancing. And Hanzo knew that wasn’t true. There were plenty of reasons why they shouldn’t know, knowing that there were complications he didn’t want, problems he was overdue for, no need to bring them forward. But, despite himself, that suspicious Shimada nature shivered against him, against the flat palm of boredom, like a cat so long without a mouse starts to bat at the string, he felt himself turn, his brother looking back at him, forward on the tips of his toes, smiling, knowing success when he saw it. 

“What did you find?” 

“Oh, brother. You won’t believe it.” 

…

“I’m gonna keep it.” 

The animal snarled back at them, hackles raised, half bathed in darkness, pressed against the cinderblock wall of its cage, amber eyes glowing, growling as they watched from outside the bars, not knowing that it’s captors were dead and gone, that no matter what it thought of captivity, the starvation to come would be worse. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

Hanzo stared at him, exasperated. 

“Look at it, Genji. It doesn’t _want_ to be kept.” 

His brother, the rescuer of all wounded birds and children in markets, blinked back, dark eyebrows meeting, confusion in his eyes as if he couldn’t understand the words, couldn’t comprehend how something wouldn’t want to be kept by him. Beyond them the animal shifted, letting out a low growl, as if to remind them that it was there, that it was watching, listening, that it had long claws and sharp teeth and would kill them if given only half a chance, wanted nothing more than their intestines making one-tone oil paintings of the floor. 

Genji ignored it, gesturing vaguely towards the cage, all theatrics. 

“Well, we can’t just leave it here, it’ll die.” 

Hanzo stared at him, mouth agape, trying desperately to figure out what was going on, what sort of delusions his brother was harbouring, what he’d failed to make clear. 

“Genji,” he gasped, blinking rapidly at him, “we kill people. For money.”

“I know that!” Genji insisted as the animal beginning to prowl against the back wall, watching them bicker and argue about its fate, “but thats not the dog’s fault!” 

“It’s not a pet, brother, they must have-they must have… _experimented_ on it or something. That must be why it’s being kept here.” He gestured towards the animal, a canine of some sort, covered in dark fur and huge, it’s body heaving, claws scrapping against the concrete floor, a wolf brought south, to walk the edges of a cage and snarl, hackles raised for months on the end, waiting, waiting for the first exposed throat, the first flash of skin, the first opportunity that came, taken in the jaws of an animal willing to do anything, anything. 

“Fine then,” Genji spat, petulant, sneering, arms folding across his skinny chest, lip curling as if it hadn’t been slapped from his face so many times before, “we’ll let it go, at least give it a chance.” 

Hanzo groaned at him, frustration bubbling up through him, suddenly so painfully away that he could have hit his brother over the head with something heavy years ago and just been done with it, instead of building up this careless sense of responsibility, letting their parents impress upon him that Genji was his to keep out of trouble as if any living being on this earth could keep Genji Shimada from fucking up really bad at least once a day. 

“God-Fine, _fine_ , I don’t care, release the beast.” He stepped back as he spoke, throwing up his hands in barely kept irritation, eyes so far into the back of his head he nearly lost his sight and never once thinking that perhaps performance was something that he and Genji shared, “just don’t come crying to me when you get mauled.” 

The rain drizzled down around them from the dark sky as Genji unstrapped his sword from his back, imitating him the whole way, murmuring the words he’d along to himself with his face twisted as he set towards the thick black chains that meant so little to a Shimada katana, made of the strongest steel in the world. From inside the cage the animal had gone dangerously quiet, eyes flickering in the low light, watching Genji’s approach with a quiet intensity, waiting for the moment to come, so patient for so long. 

Hanzo watched it back with his arms crossed across his chest, watching its head moving, watching it snarl as Genji raised his sword to pierce downwards, baring deadly teeth, inching so delicately into the light that the white moonlight caught a small ring of gold, hanging from the corner one of the animal’s alert ears, an almost human looking decoration. 

Hazno squinted at it, the animal growled, and Genji plunged his sword downwards with all his strength, the chains breaking with an enormous clatter, breaking apart with a spark and a shudder. 

And forward, 

Burst the wolf. 

He watched, as if in slow motion, as teeth sunk into flesh, and for a half second, before his brain caught up with what his eyes were seeing, he thought it was Genji and screamed, a rough, knotted sound erupting out of him, the pale sheen of boredom covering everything suddenly plunged into an awful light. Working with Genji was awful, but it was worse without him, worse alone, worse with no one to watch his back, even ineptly, no one to drink with after jobs, no one to share a hotel with, who understood why he didn’t the things he did, who had taught him these things and had been taught the same. 

But then like the snap of a band back to reality, he realised that it wasn’t him, that the wolf had pushed past him, had other targets, other throats in mind, Genji lying in a shocked daze on the ground beside the scuffle, both of them staring as the guard shrieked from between the wolf’s jaws. The guard couldn’t have been behind them by more than a meter, waiting like the wolf had beenwaiting, waiting until they were so completely unawares that they would die easy, die sweet. Both were easy targets, the wolf had chosen the latter, the target further away, the familiar enemy, left Genji unharmed on the floor. 

As the wolf and the guard tussled, others began to emerge from west wing, not nearly as dead as Genji had made them out to be, emerging from the hush of the compound, yelling down about containment breaches, about tranquillisers, sedatives, evasive manoeuvres. And where a frightened animal would have run, could have run, the wolf set upon them with a kind of fury, a kind of rage, rearing up on it’s back paws and gnashing at any parts of them it could reach, a kind of ceaseless, bone-crushing hatred, willing to die for it’s fury, eyes like fire pits, rumbling, shaking, howling with rage. 

But Hanzo had fought beside stranger allies and he’d kill the wolf if it turned on them. He’d been hired to make sure that every living man in this compound came to its rightful end, and that was what he would do. A few feet away, Genji was still on the ground and Hanzo drew back his bow, an arrow nocked. 

“Genji, you fucking idiot, you said they were dead.” 

As the guards started to swarm around the wolf Hanzo began to pick them off and Genji began to pick himself up off the ground. 

“I could have sworn I got them all,” he muttered. 

…

“We should kill it.” 

The wolf was breathing but only barely, no energy left to even look at them, to snarl at them as they stood above it, certain for a second time that all the guards were dead, that the wolf had made sure they were all dead. Its enormous body was lying on its side on the courtyard pavers, muzzle glinting with the blood it had ripped from jugulars, bodies strewn around them, its eyes glassy, the shots it had taken in the fray staining dark fur. 

“But it saved us.” 

Hanzo bristled, Genji standing beside him as they stood over the wolf, the wolf that had not once showed any interest in them, that had burst from its cage with singular purpose, to maul every motherfucker it had seen before.

And he could respect that, but he was not ready concede that he’d been saved by anything. 

“It saved _you_ , Genji” he gestured vaguely downwards to the animal dying, heaving slow and heavy breaths, without the energy to even prowl, “look at it, it would be a mercy to kill it quickly.” 

He watched Genji’s expression twist, childlike, his palms full of twitching feathers, of a bird surely unable to be repaired, something mournful in his skinny shoulders, sorry that anything had to die, knowing that if it had lived he would have taken care of it. And Hanzo had to admit that any bird would have been happy to have been kept by him, would have loved to have been loved by him, fed, kept warm and safe from whatever turmoil life had caused it. 

But he knew his place, knew that he was the killer of all Genji failed attempts, of every animal too far gone to learn to love him, and quietly, as Genji crouched down to the wolf, he nocked an arrow. 

He watched his brother reach out to soothe the beast, hand disappearing into thick fur, offering only the most rudimentary comfort, a harmless touch, gentle, as if hoping that if the wolf had ever been treated tenderly, he would die with that memory unraveling in his mind, stroked by some stranger, fur smoothed down, letting its death come just a little bit sweeter.

Beneath his hand the animal let out a low whine, some desperate, pained sound as Genji petted it, running a hand between his ears, the gold earring still sparkling in the moonlight, half stained with red.

“You are a good dog,” Genji cooed to him as Hanzo silently pulled the bow back, string taunt, “you did very well.” The beast whined again and Hanzo aimed for an eye, something to end this quickly and end it finally. 

But before he could let the arrow go, let it travel the short distance, the wolf began to shudder, began to shake, whining loud and so full of despair, hurting so badly, it’s body constricting and curling, shuddering violently as Genji tried to coo it back to stillness, trying desperately to dispel whatever panic was flooding through its veins, Hanzo above them trying to aim steadily on a moving object, knowing that if he missed, he would only cause more suffering. 

“Ssh, hush, okami, hush” Genji whispered, something like distress seeping into his voice, desperate for this to be painless, for the wolf to understand, “it’s okay, you will be okay,” he whispered. But the wolf just shuddered on, quaking, whining, something awful happening it, a violent death, a shivering, heaving exit as Genji desperately trying to calm it, to convince it that it was fine, that it was time, time to go, that there would be tennis balls waiting for it in the next life, as though it might be reborn domesticated and loved. 

Hanzo lost patience, bow slack in his hand, reaching down to grasp Genji by his collar, pulling him back from the animal as an awful cracking filled the air.

“Genji, for gods sake, get back!” 

Genji shouted in his hand as the animal seized and contorted, both of them suddenly staring, caught unawares twice in one hour, staring in horror as the animal’s bones began realigning, it’s skeletal system rearranging itself, the whining turning to a groan, shivering, changing, a chart of evolution occurring in real time before their eyes. 

“What the fuck...” he heard Genji whisper distantly, eyes locked on the shuddering body he’d failed to kill quickly, watching it become something else entirely, a body made new, bullets popping out of the holes they’d made, the wounds closing on their own, pale scars left on skin, human skin, a human body made from scavenged parts, wolf bones rebuilt into something new until what lay in front of them was a man, naked and still tender, every muscle slack, a man. 

A _man._

“What the fuck,” Hanzo found himself echoing, his brother in one hand, his bow in the other, a man with breathing too slow to be steady asleep in front of them, Genji reaching for him, this man, the wolf. He watch in pale horror as Genji touched his shoulder, where fur had just been, where the body had just been dying, needing to be soothed, and the man didn’t even stir, just slept on as he was rolled into his back. His face was scruffy, a white scar down one of his eyes, from his eyebrow to his cheekbone, hair too long, over grown like a garden hedge abandoned, jaw fuzzy with overgrowth, cheeks hollow and hungry, body tough and lean and probably taller than both of them, as wide as Hanzo was, already so distant from the shuddering death that should have been. 

Genji looked up at him, hand still on the man, still touching him. 

“I gonna keep him.” 

Hanzo hit him over the head with the flat of his palm. 

...

They drove through the night, Genji beside him, the man snoring in the backseat, all wrapped in a blanket they’d found in the trunk, already so far from the compound and the bloody mess that they’d left, bodies they could trust to be dead. Hanzo drove with a sick sense of anticipation in his throat, trying to monitor every breath, every heartbeat, so brutally torn away from his harboured simplicity, his knuckles white against the steering wheel as he drove, hours passing, the night slipping away from him as they raced through the darkness, a man who had been a wolf still sleeping behind him. A man who had been a wolf, who might have been a man before that, who might have made this transition a thousand times before, so unaware of the balance he’d disturbed, the turmoil he was creating. 

“What do you think his name is?” Genji whispered questions to him in the darkness, looking back at the wolf, splayed out on the backseat, limbs too long for the confined space but completely unrousable. “Do you think he _has_ a name?” 

Hanzo didn’t respond, just stared out the windscreen with a pit in his stomach, knowing full well that their employer would want to be updated on the situation, knowing full well that he should have killed the man while he was lying defenceless on the ground, knowing full well that this situation was only going to get more complicated the longer the wolf lived. It was impossible to say how long he’d been captive there, how long he’d been forced to stay in that little cage, how long he’d been down on all fours, forced to keep his wolf’s body, to favour long claws over clever words. 

He might have been there for years, might have forgotten entirely what it meant to be a man, to walk on two legs and speak clearly. 

And Hanzo couldn’t guarantee anything, couldn’t rely on any assumed information, didn’t even know what they were going to do with him, knowing that he should have left him there, left him on the cold concrete, in the rain, among the carnage, to freeze or starve no matter what shape his body came in. Instead they’d bundled him into the back of the truck they’d stolen, a spare bag under his head, letting him sleep off the bullets he’d taken, the new body he was in, and Hanzo still wasn’t sure why. 

He’d known that Genji would want to take him, the same child he’d always been, desperate for the injured animal to live, to be the a part of the recovery, but he could have said no, he could have put his food down, resisted. Instead he’d helped Genji haul the man up from the concrete, his body warm and heavy against his side, pulling his arm over his shoulders and dragging him away from the scene. 

“Do you think anyone has been looking for him all this time?” He could see out of the corner of his eye Genji reaching back to the man, to touch him, as if checking that he was real, still there, sleeping off his wolf bones, putting himself back together like a machine shutting down for maintenance. “Someone could be waiting for him to get home.” 

And he was right. There was surely someone out there who had known him once, that wondered where he was, if he was okay, safe, taken care of. And Hanzo could only try to assure himself that it didn’t matter, shouldn’t have mattered to him. 

Instead, he was still seeing the wolf’s teeth embedded in flesh, tearing through guard after guard, stuck experiencing the half second before he’d realised that it wasn’t Genji, stuck thinking that this man might be someone’s Genji, that he was probably valuable to someone, missed by someone, that he had not asked for imprisonment, had exacted a deliberate revenge, a revenge Hanzo could understand, could admire. 

And suddenly Hanzo was stuck trying to calculate if his sense of responsibility could bare another under his care. 

…

Hanzo stayed quiet as the man’s eyes blinked open, sitting on the bonnet of an adjacent car while the man stared at the roof of the truck, whatever animal had control over his brain coming to terms with this brand new reality, with the fact that time had gone on without him while he’d slept, still wrapped in the blanket from the night before. Hanzo made no move to get his attention, just sipped his coffee, phone in hand, and waited to see what the wolf would do, silently grateful that Genji had decided on this moment to go forage for food. 

The wolf just blinked, just stared, seeming to wake up all at once, but not quite at all, as if he was trying to figure out if this was a dream, struggling to draw the line between sleeping and waking, the wolf and the man, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air, every other part of him completely still. Hanzo wondered if his sense of smell would be as strong in this body as it was in the wolf’s, if there was some residual sense that stayed with him, his man’s body remembering that it had been a wolf once, that it was made of the same parts. He watched on. 

The man sat up with the same abruptness with which he’d woke, going from lying completely still to upright, blanket pooling around his waist, Hanzo unafraid to appreciate the charm of a body well made, honeyed skin, freckles across his broad shoulders. He was nice to look at even if he was shaggy, scruffy, his body lived in, tarnished by battle wounds and time in conflict, knowing that beneath his clothes, Hanzo was the same. He watched the man stare out the opposite window from behind him, staring into the trees, wondering if some deep set part of him was yearning for wilderness, that remembered being in a cage for so long, that remembered also the time that had been taken, that he’d never get back.

The man looked over his shoulder and his eyes found him immediately, knowing where he was like a heat seeking missile, gaze narrow from through his overgrown hair, that pale scar down his left eye almost like a claw mark, Hanzo left wondering if another wolf had put it there, if there were other wolves like him out there, waiting for him to get back, a pack. 

The man snarled, baring his blunt and human teeth, body twisting to face him, shoulders coiled in some attempt at defence. 

“Where the fuck am I?” 

His voice was deep, forceful, tumbling out of him like he’d forgotten the mechanics of it, like all that remained was half inaccurate muscle memory, trying annunciate his thoughts after so long of howling, so long of barking, growling, stuck with human vocal chords, a tongue, cheeks and lungs too complicated. He seemed to get out of breath just finishing the sentence. 

Hanzo sipped his coffee. 

“North Dakota.” 

The wolf blinked at him, snarl slipping away, confused, something almost like fright in his eyes, like hadn’t expected Hanzo be able to talk back to him. 

“What?” 

“You’re in North Dakota, the state.” 

He could remember once, he’d gotten rid of a stray cat Genji had taken in. Their father had found it, promised to kill it the next time he saw it. Genji had been so certain he could take care of it, hide it, keep it safe. Instead, Hanzo had stolen it from his room in the night, let it go into the streets, back to where it belonged, roaming the town, back to the back alleys, surviving by the skin of its teeth. Genji hadn’t ever forgiven him, probably harboured the grudge to this day, still in mourning for that cat, for the life of sweet domestication it could have lived with them. 

And for a moment he considered it, considered kicking the wolf out of the car, forcing him towards the trees, promising to kill him if he came back, trying to avoid whatever complications he could create. 

But there was no saying when Genji would be back and their father was long dead. 

“Where-where was I?” 

The wolf seemed to loose conviction the more he spoke, speaking with an American accent and a mutter, eyes slipping away from him, pushing hands through his hair, eyebrows together, something like horror in his voice, hands moving over himself as if to double check that he was who he was, that he was in his man’s body, but it was still his, still him. 

“We found you in Michigan,” Hanzo sipped his coffee, “you were in a cage.” 

“I was in a cage,” the man echoed, sitting hunched in the back seat, blanket around his waist, head in his hands, “they had me in a cage.” 

In front of him, coffee set down, Hanzo lit a cigarette. 

“If it makes you feel any better, they’re all dead now. You ripped out their throats.” The wolf stared at him as he took a drag. 

“They had me in a cage,” the wolf whispered on, “for _months_.” A kind of disbelieving rage in his voice, so furious, so angry his man’s body was hardly built to withstand it. His head jerked upwards as if every part of him was several hours behind what was actually happening, as if he was still experiencing it, hadn’t yet caught all the way up. He twitched with rage, body jerking as he gripped the car door and started yanking himself out of it, uncoordinated, clumsy, but so furious he didn’t seem to notice, one hand keeping the blanket bunched around his naked body and the other dragging his leaden form from the car, feet reaching down to the gravel carpark outside the gas station they’d found, legs shaking, pitching as though he was going to fall, like his body wanted so badly to be down on all fours.

“I gotta, I gotta...” he trailed off, but there was determination in him, determined to do something, to have some impact, control some part of this story 

Hanzo sneered at him from his perch, smoke trailing upwards from his lit cigarette. 

“You have to what? Kill them?” 

The wolf looked at him, all distress in his eyes, grappling for any ending to his own sentence, to figure out what he was so determined to do, barely upright on his feet, shaking with the effort, balanced only by the solidity of the truck, eyebrows pressed together, an almost handsome face on him. 

“Who are you, how did I get here?” 

Hanzo took a drag as he observed the wolf, clearly so unaccustomed to being in his man’s body, and shrugged, knowing that at this stage, the wolf could do him little harm, not without the aid of teeth and claws, that he could probably smell all the weapons Hanzo still had on him. 

“My brother likes strays, he didn’t want to leave you,” the wolf stared at him in confusion, “we were driving this way in any case, and figured that you would feel no need to stay where you had been held captive.”

But the wolf was quick, noticed the absence, the space where the answer to the first question should have been, eyes steady on him, standing a little taller, eyes going narrow.

“But why did you set me free? What were you doing there? ”

Hanzo gazed at him and let nothing show. 

“What were you doing there?” 

It was the only response he could think of, tapping ash out onto the gravel below. And it seemed to floor the wolf, eyes trailing away from him, body shifting so obviously that Hanzo could almost see his ears flattening, tail drooping between his legs.

“I don’t remember,” he muttered, “I don’t remember.” 

“Can you remember anything at all?” Hanzo inquired, as though he wasn’t invested, not even a little bit, not even at all. 

The wolf looked up at him, despair in his eyes. 

“No,” he whispered. 

But just as he finished speaking, Genji rounded the back of the car in that silent way that he did, exclaimed in excitement and gave the wolf such a fright that he punched him hard in the stomach, quick as lightening and Hanzo laughed so hard that he choked on his cigarette smoke. The wolf went in for a second go as Hanzo tried to keep from setting fire to his hair or toppling off the car bonnet entirely. 

“Stop, stop,” he wheezed, “he’s my brother.” 

The wolf looked back at him, blinking through his hair, fist raised for another attempt, blanket dropped and around his ankles, Genji sucking in stunted breath with nowhere to go beside him, the wind knocked out of belly, leaning heavily on the car, backpack slipping down his arm as he gasped, braced for another blow. 

“Oh,” the wolf answered, looking down at Genji, his Genji, “It’s you.” And Genji squinted back, desperately trying to breathe and keep eyes on the wolf at the same time. Hanzo watched, still wiping tears from the corner of his eyes, watching the wolf cave in on himself, ears flat, retreating, hackles down.

“Sorry.” 

Genji waved away his apology, still breathing hard, the wolf showing his shame on his face. 

“It’s fine,” he wheezed, “don’t worry about it.” 

Hanzo could already see the wolf worrying about it, but it was still funny. 

…

“So what are we going to do with him?” 

Hanzo glanced at him, sitting across from him at a picnic table they’d set up on for breakfast, the wolf a ways away, getting changed by the car, pulling on the jeans Genji had bought for him, seemingly unaware that he was still mostly naked in a small town on a weekday morning, not hurrying at the task. But Hanzo had no complaints, watching his bowed back as he laced up a spare pair of boots, jeans hanging loose off his hips, no underwear. 

He shrugged. 

“Take him home, I suppose. He has nowhere else to go.” 

Genji stared at him. 

“Oh,” he sneered, “so we’re allowed to take things home, but only once you’ve decided you’d like to fuck them?” 

Hanzo dragged his eyes away from the wolf to snarl, trying to summon whatever he’d had in him before Genji had learnt that he could be disobeyed like any other, lip curled. 

“Shut the fuck up, Genji.” 

He set his eyes back on the wolf, knowing privately that he was a greedy creature, that he couldn’t deny to himself that what Genji had observed was definitely contributing to his decision making, the wolf throwing a shirt at least two sizes too small over his head, rolling it down his chest, tight across his stomach and shoulders, some long forgotten band covering the front, a flannel to throw over the top for lack of fur. And it seemed the longer he looked at him, the more he liked looking at him. 

“Do you think he can change on will?” Genji questions came endlessly, had been coming since they were children, always midway through movies, on a topic Hanzo had never shown any expertise in, coming from nowhere, as if he was simply asking the universe, stating an interest for the answer to be given to him in time. Hanzo sipped his coffee. 

“I think it depends.” 

Genji mused about this beside him, shoving a muffin into his mouth as he considered the statement, the wolf ambling across the field towards them with his sloping stride, keeping one hand fisted in the waistband of his jeans to keep them up, the other holding his hair away from his eyes, looking like a newborn, still coming to terms with the world, back to the full spectrum of colour after looking through his wolf’s eyes for so long. 

“Do you think he’ll start remembering stuff?” 

“He might,” Hanzo began to pull apart a bread roll, running on exhaustion and the four coffees he’d had since the night before, knowing that it would be a while yet before they reached home, before he could truly relax. “He says his name is Jesse.” 

“No last name?” 

“None.” 

Genji hummed as the wolf approached, one boot laced, the other still loose, still stumbling slightly, graceless but endearing. 

“Hey,” his voice had gone soft, less defensive, calmer around them than it had been, so quick to forget the threats he’d thought they’d been, “can I eat that?” He pointed at Genji procured snacks, brought from a nearby bakery, soft pastries and bread rolls, having passed through this town a couple times before, always returning west after completed jobs, not often with a third party. It took a moment for Genji to respond, staring up at the wolf, Jesse or whatever his name was, before that sheen of delight took him over and he realised that this was a stray and he was a lover of strays, an animal in need of kindness, food, something to be loyal too. 

He grinned up at him, scooting down the picnic table seat, patting the place he’d vacated. 

“Eat as much as you like,” his words were thoughtless, the words of a boy who had never gone hungry once in his life, that thought of food as limitless, limitless to all, “sit next to me.” The wolf stared down at him, expression melting into a beautiful relief, a dog of a man, all but falling down next to him, barley in control of his unsteady legs, except to fling them under the table and hope for the best. 

He barely managed to mutter his thanks before reaching into the bag, eyes fixed on the contents, and shoving an entire croissant into his mouth like a Labrador at a buffet, his long hair still in his eyes, Genji laughing at him in that light hearted way that he did, making everything so easy, so joyful. 

From across the table, Hanzo leaned down on his palm and sipped his coffee. 

“Sorry,” the wolf said through a mouthful of pastry, eyes flickering between them, “I can’t remember the last time I had bread.” 

Genji laughed, clapping the wolf on the back and not noticing the flinch, he never noticed the flinch, never knew to keep his distance, always too close too fast, unable to understand what it might mean to a man who could only remember bad hands, a cage, moonlight and teeth. But the wolf played nicely, shooting Genji a tight smile, as if already knew that he was still a child in so many ways still, that there were so many parts of him not fully grown.

“Worry not, okami, we’ll make sure you have lots of bread to eat,” Genji grinned, “you will come home with us!” The wolf smiled around the danish he’d shoved into his mouth in response, and Hanzo started handing Genji things so that he’d get his hands off him and they’d be able to keep things easy. 

He hoped that things would be easy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so the plot of this entire jam is just that Jesse can do literally anything and Hanzo will walk around in the background holding a sign with the number ten written on it in big black letters, and every time Genji does anything Hanzo will hit him with said sign until he stops. 
> 
> The joke is that he would go absolutely feral for either of them.


End file.
